Terms of Contribution

To benefit from our FREE STUFF or RaintreeTV Student Fund gifts, you must have made a significant contribution to the site in some form.This includes programming, html, php, mysql, dynamic web development, video, still pictures, graphics, web-ware, animations, online games, flash, director, shockwave, documentaries, docudrama's, or cartoons even! Any significant contribution. Remember when one makes a contribution they must agree to the "Terms of Contribution," which requires that the individual who created the work, must agree to grant Raintree TV the non-exclusive use to copy, distribute, and display their work in perpetuity on www.raintree.tv without any form of compensation other than recognition.

The intent of the Terms of Contribution, is to allow us to display your work without worrying about copyright infringement by getting your permission and making a record of it.

Anyone who wishes to contribute content to the site may do so if he, she, other non-profit organization, or other commercial enterprises alike agree to our Terms of Contribution, stated below. "You" or "your" means all who create, or own, in part or in whole, to any work contributed to RaintreeTV.

1. Before any contribution may be displayed or used by RaintreeTV™, whether web development, new media, picture, video, or otherwise web-ware, all "in part" or "in whole" creators or owners must agree to these terms. RaintreeTV has the right to change or update these terms without notice at any time. Though the Terms of Contribution may change over time, you agree to maintain and live up to your legal commitment to these terms regardless.

Non-Exclusive Use Agreement

What does a "non-exclusive use agreement" mean?

When you agree to our Terms of Contribution, the "non-exclusive use agreement" means that we can essentially use, or not use, your contribution as we see fit on RaintreeTV. This does not mean that you can not sell your work elsewhere at any time. There is only one limitation. You will retain the right to sell or distribute your work elsewhere for any amount of money your can get. However, you will not be able to sell your work to someone else granting them "exclusive rights to" or "exclusive use of" the same work you have contributed to RaintreeTV. Instead you will only be able to sell or license them "non-exclusive rights to or non-exclusive use of" those contributions you have made to RaintreeTV.

For example: You create a video about school lunch and name it "your school lunch video." You come to our site and submit your video to RaintreeTV and sign our Terms of Contribution. We display your video until our hearts are content. Then one day an executive producer from Universal Studios shows up outside your front door. He says he wants to buy your video. You tell him you have already granted non-exclusive rights to use and distribute your work to someone else. He says, fine, can I buy or license non-exclusive rights (acknowledging the non-exclusive rights you have already granted RaintreeTV). You say yes, he writes you a big check.

The executive then has two options.

First option: The executive has to accept the situation "as is," and use your video in part or in whole as he sees fit, while at the same time RaintreeTV continues to use the same video. RaintreeTV has no problem with this, because our understanding to begin with was "non-exclusive use." However if both the executive and RaintreeTV decide to cut up the same video and use parts in a sci-fi movie. Both can complain, but no one can do anything about it. Once you have granted non-exclusive use to one person, you can't grant sole exclusive use to someone else, because you no longer have the right to do so, without getting agreement from the party you initially granted non-exclusive use to.

Second option: The executive has to then show up at our door, and "buy back those non-exclusive use rights" you granted RaintreeTV, which we can not sell without your agreement. Essentially, the executive can pay us to stop using your work so they can sell it exclusively. Which we would likely be happy to do.

 

Specific Limitations of this non-exclusive use agreement.:

1. RaintreeTV may use, copy, or distribute your contribution so long as we do not sell it. This is good business, because it encourages future business. If we can't profit from directly selling your work based on this TOC agreement, we are highly motivated to make a deal with you where we share profits made from direct sales distributing your work. This TOC agreement also encourages future business by allowing us to provide wide reach for ourselves and our contributors to find work with real sales potential, which can only be determined with market research. Here, our market research is seeing how many people you can draw with your work. With this TOC agreement we can do this with a minimum of expense, and when we find a potential product, or group of products from our collective contributors, which could be sold, we will then contact those contributors and attempt to make a deal allowing us all to share in the profits with those contributors from direct sales of those contributions. This allows us to do the market testing and research needed to make intelligent decisions regarding offers to purchase a "License to Sell" your work.

In this way, RaintreeTV is a powerful engine for advertising your work, your skills, and yourself, all of which can lead to sales revenue or professional opportunities.

Special exceptions for audio and video contributions:

When you submit your audio or video work to our site, you retain all your copyrights with the following exceptions. We may use your work according to the non-exclusive use agreement discussed above. We may also alter, sample, or cut pieces of your submitted work for the purposes of promotion, marketing, and advertising to bring more viewers to see your and other's work.

For example: You make a video about school lunch. We want people to watch it. So we cut short segments out of your work for brief promotional ads which may last only a few seconds to motivate visitor curiosity to get them to watch your entire original work.

For example: You make some sound effects of an old door slamming shut. Your audio clip is 5 seconds long. However we need a shorter sound effect of an old door slamming for use here on our web site. We cut or edit your sound effect, perhaps combine it with others, and incorporate it into a web page, a flash, director, or shockwave file.

Aside from the limitations and exceptions above:

We will not edit or modify your work and declare a modified version to be your making. We have no resources or interest in correcting errors or misspelling in your work. We will simply either display it or not. Part of our purpose is to provide other professionals and organizations a fair and accurate picture of your work, your skills, and your capabilities. If we were to modify your online web game made in director, even if we thought we were improving it, this would suggesting to potential employers you were better than you really are. That would be providing false information to someone who's trust we would like to keep. So, that will never happen. Instead we will provide feedback on your contributions and you may, and we even encourage, continuing to improve on your work till you are satisfied. Likewise we will not modify your creations in any way to degrade them, because that would be misleading as well. We want your creations to be perfectly representative of your skills and abilities.

Your agreement to our Terms of Contribution (TOC) agreement means that you agree to the following:

1. You have the right to and choose to grant us the rights stated in our TOC.

2. We may distribute or copy your work so long as we do not generate profits from "direct sales of your contribution" without your explicit written agreement.

3. We will not modify your flash, director, shockwave, freehand, illustrator, photoshop, fireworks, animations, interactive's, or online web game work in any way. We may take still images or video clips of these items at any point in their internal timeline for promotional purposes, such as advertising to encourage people to view your work or to make thumbnail like buttons pointing to your work.

4. For web development, including mysql, php, javascript, dhmtl, design recommendations, and all other forms of web development contributions we may modify them at will to any extent we desire at any time. Web development is very fluid and any such contribution can not be accepted without your permission to modify at will.

5. For audio or video contributions we will not misrepresent a sample as your original or directors cut masterpiece unless it is your real original contribution in it's original state without any modifications whatsoever. However we may take small samples or cuts of audio and video for the purposes and examples stated in the TOC agreement.

6. We will not correct misspellings in your resume, bio or cv. But we may remove or temporarily block out information which may pose a security risk for RaintreeTV or yourself, until we can confirm you desire and intend to expose yourself to that security risk.

For example: You put your home phone number on your resume, now posted on RaintreeTV. We block it out until we can confirm that you intend and desire thousands of telemarketing companies or strange weirdo's to call you at home.

7. By signing our TOC you also acknowledge that you hold all copyrights or intellectual property rights including the right to license or otherwise grant us rights and permissions to use your contributed work according to this TOC agreement.

Please fill in your contributor information below:

Note to reader: "Good business, encourages future business," says the Go-To-Guy.
Does RaintreeTV and our TOC encourage future business? Tell us what you think here on our bulletin board.